I Don't Concern Myself With Their Age

I haven't seen my parents since Christmas, so my mom decided they would come spend her Birthday with me.

"Do you know how old Mom is?" Dad asked.

  

"I don't know.  I don't know how old you are either! Does it bother you that I don't know how old you are?  Is that weird?"

Mom laughed.  Dad told me their ages.  They're older than I thought.  I'll probably forget by next year.

My parents moved to Las Vegas three years ago.  Three!  Usually I feel like something happened

yesterday, even when it's been years, but in this particular case it does not feel like yesterday.  It feels like they've been gone forever.  I hardly remember what it was like for them to be less than an hour away.

  

Distance aside, I think we've done a really good job of seeing each other.  Last year they came to me once, and I flew to Vegas three times.  It would have been four, but plans for Thanksgiving changed at the last minute, and I flew somewhere else.  They always drive, because for some odd reason my dad enjoys a good five hour road trip.  They are retired.  They have time.  Me?  Not so much.  I have neither the time nor patience for that desolate drive.  I'm the kind of person who gets sleepy on a two hour drive and my foot actually gets tired from holding down the gas pedal.  I don't know what's wrong with me!  I never really get the best prices on airfare, but the time and energy saved is well worth the money.  We won't even talk about when my flight was so delayed I could have driven there in less time, or that time my 10pm flight home got cancelled while we were boarding the plane and I had to fly out the next day.  

I was kind of worried about my mom coming to me for her Birthday because there is much more to do in Las Vegas, where she actually lives.  I wanted her to have a good Birthday, but I was still trying to figure out what we should do.

I worried for nothing.  The plans fell into place the morning of her Birthday, while we were on a 1 hour and 45 minute walk.  That's what happens when I tell my mom we'll turn around and head home whenever she wants.  We stopped at Altitude Sky Lounge in the Gaslamp for the outstanding view of the city, and took advantage of happy hour priced drinks.  Dinner was Bucca di Beppo, which is not unique to San Diego.  They have one in Vegas, but it's on the strip, and people who live in Vegas tend not to like the strip much, so she's never gone.

The whole long weekend was pretty great.  After we went out to breakfast together on Sunday, Dad ran off to catch up with old friends while my mom and I spent the day shopping at Las Americas Premium Outlets.  One more exit and we'd be in Tijuana, so I was really careful not to miss it.  I enjoyed having a shopping buddy who is just as slow and patient of a shopper as me.  I dragged her into store after store, on the hunt for pants that don't seem to exist, and she was perfectly fine with it.  Store after store was skinny pant this, ankle pant that, and fitted through the seat.  Where have all the casual fit cotton blend normal size leg pants gone? Oh I know where. The men's department.

They spent that weekend in San Diego celebrating Mom's Birthday, and the following weekend they went to San Francisco to celebrate my niece's.  Last Summer they were in South Carolina with my other sister.  My parents get around.  They make retirement look good, and it makes me so happy to see them enjoying life. My mom got a kindle to keep up with all the books she reads in book club.  She does spinning, zumba, Pilates, and three types of Yoga.  Hot, meditative and the kind in the park. My dad takes Piano lessons and has discovered YouTube and Facebook.  They go to the casino down the street a lot. When I went to visit over the holidays we were at South Point just about every day for one reason or another.  They are at the movies every single Tuesday.  I can't ever find a movie for us to watch together because they see everything. Mom and Dad get out more than I do.  I can't tell you how many nights I'm at home on the couch while they are out on some Las Vegas adventure.  I even got my mom to do Bikini Body Guide with me.  For those of you who don't know, BBG is a hard core butt kicker HIIT circuit exercise program that can bring a woman in her 20's to her knees, let alone a woman in her 60's.

I lost track of my mom's age sometime after her fiftieth Birthday party.  My parents don't look their age, but then again neither do I.  Or so I'm told.  They are forever young at heart, and I guess that's why I don't concern myself much with their age.  I know it isn't possible, but I want them to be young forever.  I want them to be here forever.  In my mind they are forever forty and that's exactly what I told them.